Meet Ricky Gervais

i remember it was repeated 18 months or so ago and so i watched it

it was one of the funniest things ive ever seen

the interviews with celebrities were priceless and he made no bones about telling them they werent first choice and degraded them on a regular basis

there were little sketches he did with steve merchant before and after the breaks that were on a par with chris morris for dark humour (one involved ricky masturbating while steve hid in a cupboard and watched!)

the way he treated tony green (darts commentator) was funny

on one scene tony dressed in fishnet stockings while they did a game show called "ricky gervais's play your cards right" in the scene ricky turned over a playing card to reveal a homosexual pornographic image. ricky went mad but tony said "you like looking at them when its just me and you backstage"

its safe to say there was a whiff of homosexuality across the entire series

priceless

Of course Ricky Gervais is a star now. But he wasn't quite then. He was on his way up and this makes watching these episodes wonderful. They all have his characteristic humor, maybe not as polished as later on, but hilarious nonetheless. The little in-betweens with Stephen Merchant are great. You can see the chemistry between them.

What I found funniest, most of all, is the fact that he has a line of B (and C)celebrities with which he has to make do. He is still unknown and so probably the A category isn't available to him. You can see his guests all wondering who this short fat bloke is who's slagging them of. Thinking: 'should I take this from this nobody?' He doesn't care. he is sharp and usually goes a bit too far (which is his trademark, I think)in his jokes. Wonderful!

This series was good, and very funny, sometimes darkly funny. Of course, Gervais went on to do the brilliant "The Office", and this was his last venture on Channel 4. Worth a watch if it's ever repeated. It was a good combination of his stand-up comedy and a funny interview technique.